


Rebirth

by ItsaVikingThing



Series: Korrasami Week 2019 [1]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, I got lateral with the prompt, It's almost more canon divergent than AU?, It's also kind of a sci-fi AU, Korrasami Week 2019, Prompt: body swap, Why not read it and decide for yourself?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 21:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20664071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsaVikingThing/pseuds/ItsaVikingThing
Summary: By the time Asami Sato is twenty, she is recognised as the most brilliant prodigy of her age: the age of the internal combustion engine. A year later, Asami is dying and her father makes a desperate bid to give her a life in the future.After centuries spent in a state of near death, Asami has to cope with waking up in a new body in a world she no longer knows...





	Rebirth

Asami dies at the age of twenty-one. What kills her isn't the incurable disease that she had carried inside her like a time bomb since her birth, the disease that had slowly severed her ties to the world around her, but a toxin administered by a chemist with steady hands and a look of mild curiosity on his face. Asami's heart had stopped beating by the time her body is frozen. Her brain should have ceased to function, should have hung suspended, incapable of thought, incapable of deterioration. But when she finally wakes up again, Asami remembers the twenty-one years of her life and the cold she endured for the many, many years of her death.

* * *

Returning to life gives Asami some perspective on what it must have felt like to be a princess in a spirit story. Asami knows her sleep was deeper and less decorous than any of the women in the stories that her mother used to read to her when she was a child, though, and it wasn't a lover's kiss that awoke her but technology that she doesn't understand.

In the moments between waking naked and shivering in an unfolding cocoon of synthetic materials, being helped into a robe made of a kind of fabric she's never touched before, undergoing a medical exam involving devices she could never have imagined, and being ushered into an office made of materials she didn't know could be fabricated, Asami is made keenly aware of how little she understands about the world she is alive in now.

She gains some perspective, too, on what it must feel like to be old as she walks through quiet and entirely blank corridors. Asami can feel the strength in her body, strength she'd thought lost forever to her disease, but her limbs are stiff, her body is cold and it's a struggle to do simple things. Of course, it had become impossible to do much of anything in her last few months of existence, so perhaps she should be grateful.

After she has been deposited in a chair that proves to be somehow less comfortable than it looks, Asami considers the room and the well of her gratitude, finding both empty.

The office is a place of sleek lines and stark colours. There is little in the way of furniture, just one chair each on either side of a desk that is topped with black glass. Everything is strange, familiar and unknowable at once. Everything but one thing: a logo emblazoned on the opaque window beyond the desk Asami was gently encouraged to sit in front of. It's changed in a thousand subtle ways, but she knows that logo immediately. 

Future Industries.

Her father's company, the one he had hoped she'd inherit some day. At nineteen Asami had been considered an engineering prodigy, every bit as gifted as her father in her mastery of the wonder of the age: the internal combustion engine. At twenty her health had begun to fail, her body shrinking as it waged war on itself. By the time she was twenty-one, Asami wasn't trusted with a moment's privacy or even a mirror, let alone her tools.

Asami has no idea how old she is now. She still hasn't seen a mirror, but she has seen enough to know that the internal combustion engine is no longer the wonder of the age. It is easy to imagine that the only prodigious thing about her today is the amount of money that was spent to preserve and restore her.

After Asami tries and fails to find her pulse, she simply sits on the chair. She rubs her arms, hoping that the shivering will stop while she waits for someone to happen to her.

He arrives in a suit that fits him like a glove, revealing an almost absurdly muscular physique. His blandly handsome face wears a smile so predatory Asami feels her heart speed up and some of the fog clear from her mind. She begins to subtly stretch her muscles, readying herself in case she needs to use the defensive techniques she spent a decade learning and which proved inadequate when the only enemy she ever faced was her own body when it began to devour itself.

"Well, this is quite a day! Quite a day!" The man sits down, still smiling, and touches the surface of his desk. Lights spring to life, projected from the glass. Asami sees paperless files and images, all of them concerning her. A sweep of his hand arrays them across his desk, glowing like jewels and delineating her life, her death and her rebirth. Another sweep of his hand sees them shrink down and shuffle themselves into a tiny stack in the corner of his desk. "As you can see, I know _so_ much about you! Everyone here knows _you_! This is a day we've all _eagerly_ awaited!"

Asami doesn't look up. She studies the man across from her in the reflection of his desk. He looks young but doesn't move or speak like a young man does. His mouth smiles, but his eyes don't.

"Asami Sato," the man says, unperturbed by her silence. His smile widens to display more of his too-perfect white teeth. "I am Director Gao. I oversee things here at the Re-Life Facility, which represents the bleeding edge in biotechnology. The _bleeding_ edge. And every bit of our brilliance has been put in service to your recovery. I'm aware that this may be a confusing time for you, Ms Sato, but I feel like we are old friends already! It is an _honour_ to be the one to meet you at last, and to be able to say: your disease is cured! You may now look forward to a very long, very healthy life. Ms Sato..._Asami_, welcome back to the land of the living!"

Asami raises her head from her contemplation of the surface of his desk, hoping her face is blank. She says nothing.

"Now then," Gao says cheerfully, rubbing his hands together. "We have a few forms to fill in, though truly they put the form into formality, haha! And then, you will be on your way back into the world with a considerable personal fortune! Won't that be wonderful? Now, let's get the tedious business out of the way and then I'll get to your questions! You won't even need to sign anything, just touch where I show you and, rather like magic, your biometric signature will--"

Asami's voice is rust. "Is my father...?"

Gao's smile dims. He assumes a strained air of sorrow. "You were the very first person to undergo this process, and you have been most fortunate. More fortunate than some who followed you. Ah, that is to say: your father made no provisions for himself. Perhaps he thought he'd have more time to make them and never got around to it. Perhaps he wished to wait for the process to...improve, after some of the early...mishaps. Well. Well. Hiroshi Sato lived a full life, be assured of that! And now, thanks to his foresight, it's your turn!"

Asami forces the knowledge of her father's death to the back of her mind. She'll examine it later, when she's alone. "When am I?"

He blinks, but quickly puts his smile back in place. "Ah...perhaps you mean _where_? We are still in Republic City, I assure you. I had the window darkened as it can be an...adjustment, since the view has changed quite a bit. Quite a bit! However, a curated guide to societal re-entry awaits! Just as soon as we have you sign off on some necessary--"

"Did you know my father, Director?"

"Not...personally, however--"

Asami raises a hand. It barely shakes. Gao stops talking, but his smile fades and his eyes become sullen. "I didn't think so. But I suspect he made his presence felt, didn't he? When he entrusted me to the future, I suspect he made his wishes for how the future would receive me known."

Gao's face darkens. "Ms Sato, with all due respect--"

"With none whatsoever, shut up. I may not be at my best, and this may not be the world I know, but I have a brain and I understand business. And I know...knew my father. So, do I have a controlling interest in the company? Is that what you want me to sign away while I'm supposed to be too shocked and addled to understand what I'm doing?"

His jaw works. "Hardly! Future Industries has evolved considerably since your day, Ms Sato. Your shares represent a trivial percentage--"

"Oh, that hostility tells me that I have a _lot_ of shares. And, no doubt, a separate source of funds to allow me to establish myself _without_ surrendering them. I'm guessing that I have a nominal position on the board, too? One that becomes actual now that I'm awake?"

Gao says nothing. His face says everything.

"I see. Well, I do understand that, having been dead for a long time, I'm hardly qualified to take on a role in directing this business."

"Near dead, technically. Not truly dead." Gao tries another smile. "But it's as you say! You can neither be expected to sit on the board, nor would it be useful. Once you sign away your shares, you'll have a _considerable_ fortune with which to build a new life, so--"

"Gao. I was dead, but I've never been stupid. How long have I been frozen?"

He glares at her, but he tells her.

Asami nods jerkily, telling herself not to cry. "I see. I assume you're not the one who normally oversees the newly awakened?"

Gao's face contorts, different emotions flickering across his features before he settles on a smile. "You are a _very_ special case, so of course I was ecstatic at having the opportunity to make myself available--"

"Mm." Asami sighs. "I think we're done. I'd rather someone else answer the rest of my questions. I'll return to the issue of my shares and my role on Future Industries' board after my...re-entry process. For now, I'd like to speak to a doctor. Or maybe an engineer?"

Gao's smile splinters. His teeth remain on display. "I simply must insist that we deal with the matter of your relationship to Future Industries first. In time, you'll thank me for saving you from a host of legal difficulties with which you will be thoroughly _embroiled_ if you attempt to--"

"I suspect my seat on the board trumps your concerns. I suspect your insistence means nothing legally, which is almost as much as it means to me. And I suspect I know why you're so insistent that I give up my seat, so you may as well drop the act." Asami smiles wearily. Her voice sounds like hers again when she says, "I learned to read my father's files upside down when I was a child, Director Gao, and how to speed read when I was in my teens. If you wanted to keep me in the dark, perhaps you shouldn't have used your wonderful desk of yours to show me how much you knew about me. About the _new_ me."

Gao licks his lips. "I...fail to see the relevance of--"

Asami leans forward, placing her hands on the edge of his desk. "I'm extremely interested in the phrase 'functionally immortal', Director, as it applies to my new body."

After that, Gao calls her a number of names, none of them 'Asami' or 'Sato'. But when Asami leaves his office, she's still a member of the board of Future Industries and she's able to walk without the assistance of the person who takes her to see the doctor.

* * *

Asami understands almost nothing that the doctor tells her, though she decides that she was right to think more in terms of engineering than of medicine. Doctor Narrok might wear a white coat with a stylised blue wave emblazoned on a shoulder patch, but his role in the facility has nothing to do with bending and little to do with healing. Asami discovers that she wasn't cured of her disease, her old body was simply discarded and a new one built to house her mind.

And, given the quantity of synthetic materials in her organs and bones, 'built' is the apposite word.

Her father's planning for Asami's future had extended beyond her career prospects and material wealth when she woke up: her new body apparently exists at the pinnacle of bioengineering. Her body will age very slowly, heal extremely quickly, resist diseases and toxins, and, once Asami has grown used to it, perform at a physical level Asami mentally translates as preternatural since the descriptors Doctor Narrok uses mean nothing to her.

Asami's new body is not immortal, not in fact. As incredible as it is, it will break down eventually. But by that time, there will likely be even better bodies available. If Asami is shrewd in maintaining her fortune, immortality could be hers for the right price.

Asami stops listening after that revelation. It's only when Narrok begins to discuss fine-tuning the fragrance of the perfume her new sweat produces that Asami is shaken from her stupor. She thanks the doctor for their time and takes her leave.

* * *

A visit to a restroom provides Asami with her first look in the mirror. She makes her escort--a tall man whose shoulder patch shows a likeness of crackling flames--wait outside and opens her robe, studying her new body. She looks much like she did when she was nineteen: young, strong and beautiful. Her eyes and her hair and her lips are still hers, or rather how she remembers them to have been.

But had she really been _this_ beautiful? Even without makeup, with her hair untended? No, she could never have been this beautiful when she was alive. She was never _like this_ when she was alive.

Her bones are not the bones she knew, her muscles are more alloy than tissue. Her skin is soft and unblemished and feels like someone's skin should, and yet...there _should_ be blemishes. Asami broke her shin when she was ten, falling out of a tree she had been forbidden to climb. The scar is gone, though the memory of her father's anger and terror remains.

Her mother had died a few years before. The thought of losing Asami too, the last family he had in the world, had taken hold of Hiroshi Sato and Asami had never understood how deeply until the needle had pierced one of her sunken veins and her life had been taken from her, her death denied her.

Asami wonders if there are any trees to climb nearby. She suspects that it would have to be a very tall tree to cause her to break a bone now. No scars will form on her new skin, or so she has been told. The indignity of a runny nose is something she will no longer have to suffer. Infirmity might take centuries to set in, and by then there might be methods to overcome aging entirely.

Before she died, Asami had begun to perceive death as a friend she hadn't met yet. Her father had been unable to share her viewpoint, still nursing the wound of Asami's mother's death as he was. Perhaps that's why her father had died with no wish to ensure his own resurrection. Asami knows it was no accident or indecision on her father's part that kept him from a needle and a cocoon of his own.

There's something beautiful in knowing that he risked the unknown to seek out the spirit of Yasuko Sato.

If only he'd allowed Asami the same choice. But death has been barred from Asami's body, even though death has been allowed to claim everyone she ever knew. Change has taken away everything else. Everything but the company her father built. She almost wants to be rid of her association with it, but as petty as her defiance is beginning to feel, the thought of giving Gao what he wants is one she can't bear to consider for long.

Even if he's probably right. How could Asami possibly hope to find a place in a company that pushes technology into the future when she is nothing but an ignorant relic from the past?

How is Asami supposed to live in a world she hasn't even seen yet?

Asami takes one last look at herself in the mirror, then goes in search of a change of clothes and a way out into the world.

* * *

Since leaving the Re-Life Facility requires a series of psychological tests and lessons in the use of modern technology, Asami's only available way out into the world right now turns out to be the roof garden.

If Asami were less exhausted, she might have been more suspicious at how easily she wins the fight to escape her Reintegration Schedule. But she is too busy thinking about so many other things that she thinks nothing of it when, after the smoothest elevator ride of her life, Asami is allowed out onto the roof alone.

She barely acknowledges the greenery around her, or the beautifully raked beds of gravel, or the profusion of blooms of different hues, or even the elegant curves of the trunks of the sickle-like trees that line her path to a balcony rail.

Asami's chief focus is on the city she grew up in, the city that grew up without her. The Re-Life Facility occupies an island in Yue Bay, one once occupied by a temple dedicated to the re-nascent Air Nation. The wooden temple Asami used to see from afar is gone, replaced by a tall building made of white stone veined with shimmering gold. As tall as it is, it's not nearly so tall as the glittering towers that dominate the skyline of the city. The sun hasn't sunk yet, but Republic City is aglow with lights in shades more numerous than the flowers that surround Asami. And all around and above and under those lights is the city itself, even more vast and strange and busy than it was when Asami saw it last. 

A year ago. Centuries ago.

Is it the distance that makes her city a stranger to Asami? Is it some quality of the light? Or is it simply that Republic City has changed so much that there are no hints of her world left in it?

Asami stares at the city until she has to look away. She looks down, considering the drop to the hard earth below. She's at least two hundred feet up. Higher than any tree she's ever climbed...

"It's a lot to take in, isn't it?" a woman asks from behind Asami.

Asami only realises that she's been crying when she whirls around and finds a blurry figure standing on the path at a respectful distance. She rubs at her eyes and the woman comes into focus. She's in her early twenties, and a few inches shorter than Asami, but there's incredible composure in her stance, and a sense in her stillness that she's ready to move at any moment in any direction. She's wearing a blue top over tight blue pants. Her top exposes her arms and shoulders, displaying sculpted muscles that seem perfectly balanced to deliver speed and strength with fluid grace. Her skin is brown, firm and smooth. Her hair is brown, too, hanging straight and loose to her shoulders. She's smiling, her full lips canted at an angle that might feel mocking if not for those eyes.

Her eyes are the blue of a sky that promises a peaceful Spring day, at first glance. Looking closer, Asami decides that this woman's eyes are the blue glimpsed in the ephemeral swell of a wave, a blue so beautiful the ocean only shows it for brief moments on days when the sun and the wind are exactly right.

Her eyes are the first kind thing that Asami has seen in this world.

"You're...like me. Aren't you?" Asami says, aware that she's staring and unable to look away. "You're much too beautiful to be real. Though it's actually a relief to know that I'm not the best product of this facility's work after all. It's hard to imagine how they'll improve on you."

To Asami's surprise and dismay, the woman bursts out laughing. Asami stiffens, caught between anger and embarrassment, until she realises that this is the first time she's heard laughter of any kind since her illness shrank her world to the size of her bedroom. Even if she's the target of that laughter, the sound of it relaxes her.

"Sorry," the woman says, brushing a tear from the corner of her eye. She grins, displaying dazzling white teeth. "That's, uh, that's a new reaction is all! I'm not used to...I, ah, I'm Korra. And no one made..." Korra waves at her body, the motion casual yet every bit as precise and graceful as Asami had imagined it would be. "This is just me! I'm not a, uh...fellow patient."

It takes a second for Asami's mind to wrestle down her embarrassment long enough to reach the obvious conclusion. "You're an employee. I should have known they'd never let me be alone. Not up here."

"Sorry about that," Korra says softly. Her expression tells Asami that Korra is either sincere or the best liar she's ever encountered. "Sooner or later, everyone who wakes up wants to see what their new world looks like. They always find their way up here. And it varies from person to person, but it's always some kind of shock. I don't think it's a great idea to let anyone face a moment like this alone."

"So you're part of my rehabilitation? Is that it...Korra?" Asami folds her arms. "Are you going to make me jump through your hoops before I can leave? Because I warn you now, I'm not going to go along with any of Gao's schemes."

"Oh! Right! The schemes!" Korra makes a show of patting her pants--which are, like Gao's suit, improbably tight-fitting--and clicks her fingers. "Aww, I must have left all my hoops at home. No schemes today, I guess. Maybe we could just talk for a while? If that's okay?"

Asami frowns. Aside from Gao's pretense of obsequious dedication to her, the staff of the facility have been professionally polite or even deferential to her. Korra's mockery is refreshing. "I don't understand..."

"Yeah, I'll bet." Korra wanders over to the balcony rail, gazing out over the bay. "You've had a lot thrown at you today. Too much. But for the record, I'm not really an employee here. I'm more of a consultant. I'm not here to spy on you or tell you what you to do. I'm mostly here to listen. _If_ you want to talk." She glances at Asami, offering her a sliver of a smile. "And, uh, I have to admit: I'm here for me, too. I always wanted to meet you, Ms Sato."

"You've read my files, I take it?" Asami leans against the balcony rail, staring out at the city. She keeps a wary distance from Korra, watching her from the corner of her eye. "Yes, I've met a lot of people who said they were excited to meet me today. And why not? My father devised this whole process for me. I was the first person to be put to sleep, and though I'm not the first to awaken, I'm supposedly the pinnacle of their craft and technology. I can imagine that everyone in this building is _proud_ of the work that went into my body." Asami turns her head, meeting Korra's eyes. "Does it meet your expectations?"

"I don't have access to your files. But, ah, I have read about you." Korra steps forward, leaning her arms against the rail. She faces Asami, smiling her crooked smile. "When you were sixteen, you anonymously entered into the fifth Future Industries Satomobile Cup. A Sato wasn't supposed to enter into the competition, but you did, and you won it. People were _furious_ when they found out you were Hiroshi Sato's daughter! They took your cup away, but they couldn't take away the fact that you won. Not because of nepotism, but because of sheer skill. They kept banning you from different races as the sport grew, but you kept racing any way you could. And you kept winning."

Asami stares at Korra, unable to speak. She's assailed by memories so vivid she can smell the leather of her custom steering wheel again. Her fingers curl around empty air, but she can _feel_ the gear stick in her hand.

Korra's smile widens. "Of course, you didn't just race Satomobiles! You worked on them, too. Your private tinkering started influencing the design philosophy of Future Industries as a whole! Your father had to fight to get you recognised as a junior executive, and you had to fight twice as hard to get your ideas taken seriously. But by eighteen, you were head of R&D. You developed the first planes! You were the first person to _fly_ a plane!"

"I...had to fight for that, too. I had to fight my father most of all." Asami shakes her head, dazed. "We tested everything thoroughly before that flight, of course. And we had the assistance of Master Tenzin of the Air Nation in case of an emergency. It was as safe as a test flight could be, which wasn't safe enough for my father or the board. But was I supposed to let someone else take the risk when it was my design?" Asami shakes her head. "I haven't thought about that in so long. I imagine things have advanced beyond my ability to understand them. I can't imagine why anyone would remember _me_."

Korra laughs again, the sound warm and full of life. "You're the world's first pilot of the world's first viable plane! No one can take that from you. You made _sure_ no one would. You're kinda...there are _books_ about you, Ms Sato."

"Asami." She waves away the formal address distractedly. "Please."

"Oh. Asami." Korra's smile widens into her impossible grin. "Okay! I, uh, you...well, you used to date men. But you dated women, too. Openly. At a time when it was still illegal in the Fire Nation and considered immoral in a lot of other places, including Republic City." Asami stiffens, focusing on Korra completely. Korra shifts, looking away as she rubs the back of her neck. Quietly she says, "Things have changed for the better on that front. No one has to hide who they love now. We're free to love who and how we choose. But that's the thing: you chose not to hide, at a time when it would've been safer for you to pretend in public that you didn't like women. You chose to be brave."

"I was lucky. Not brave." Asami shrugs. "My father was wealthy and influential. I could take risks because I was a lot better protected from the consequences than most people. I'm not the crusader you imagine, Korra. Most of what I did was acting out because my father wanted me to be kept safe and I wanted to be free. It was petty rebellion! We used to fight all the time, and..." Asami discovers the smile on her lips only when it dies. "And that was all a very long time ago. None of it matters now."

There's a moment of quiet between them. Asami turns her attention out over the bay again, this time not bothering to watch Korra. Whoever she really is and whatever she wants, Asami doesn't think that Korra is a threat. Even if she meant Asami harm, even if she were a bender or possessed some hidden weapon, she'd struggle to significantly damage Asami's body before building security intervened. Asami loses herself to the white noise of her churning thoughts until Korra speaks again.

"I read a lot of histories when I was young. Well, uh...more like I read about a lot of historical figures. Kings and queens, lords and ladies, politicians, religious leaders..." Korra sighs. "I hated studying, but I liked learning about people. I didn't really know what I was looking for...heh, I didn't even know I was looking for anything at all, until I found it."

"And I was one of the people you read about? I wasn't exactly a leader."

"You weren't, no. Not exactly. But I saw a picture of you in your aviator gear in a book once, and I had to know your story." Korra chuckles. "You didn't really fit in back then, did you?"

"I..." Asami frowns at Korra, who is watching her with a strange intensity. "Is that what this is? Are you trying to make me feel better about being displaced in time by suggesting I didn't _fit in_ in my own time? Because I was happy with my life, Korra! And I was ready to...I was happy, Korra."

"I didn't mean it like that," Korra says, her expression sheepish. "And I know that reading a few chapters in a few books about you doesn't mean I know _you_. But...when I was a teenager, looking for something, I found it in you. Because it looked to me like you didn't fit in your society at all. It looked to me like you made them make room for you. You made people make room for new ideas. You _changed_ things, just by being brave enough to be who you truly were, no matter the consequences. Reading about the way you lived, and the way you...loved made me realise a lot about who I, uh, who I was and...who I could be. The things you did mattered then, and they matter now. To me, for one. Y'know, I wanted to meet you partly to say thank you. So..."

Korra pushes away from the rail and offers Asami a deep, formal bow. "Thank you, Asami, for being exactly who I needed when I needed an example to guide me."

"I...ah, you're welcome?" Asami says nothing for a long time, because it takes her a long time to think of anything to say. "I'm considered _history_ now..."

Korra smiles sadly. "It's a strange feeling, isn't it?"

"It is." Asami stares down at her hands. She stopped shaking some time ago, but she still feels cold. Her hands look much as they did when she was healthy. "_Everything_ is strange. I...did you know my sweat smells like jasmine? They engineered my body that way because it was my favourite perfume and someone thought I'd prefer that to real sweat. But I smelled like engine grease more often than I smelled like jasmine. Engine grease and sweat. I worked _hard_, Korra. I earned that sweat. I _liked_ that smell. Most of my happiest memories are associated with it. Sweat and engines."

She looks at Korra. Korra watches her, her large blue eyes symapthetic.

"I'm not a person anymore," Asami whispers into the inviting silence. "Am I? I was a patient, and then I was a project...and now everything that made me a person is gone. I'm history. I'm other people's ideas of what I was and what I should be. I'm...gone. I should be gone. I was ready to...why couldn't he let me go?"

Korra pulls her into her arms, tucking Asami's head onto her shoulder. She holds Asami close, rubbing soothing circles into Asami's back. "I can't answer that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything you've been through, Asami."

"I don't know what to do," Asami gasps, burying her head in Korra's shoulder. "I never wanted this! I don't want this, and I could have it for centuries! I could have it forever!"

"Asami..." Korra gently squeezes her. Korra's heart beats steady and strong against Asami's chest. She's wearing a floral perfume Asami can't identify, but under that scent is the scent of her body, one earthy and soothing in its reality. There's more comfort than Asami had imagined possible in Korra's arms. There's less comfort in her next words, though. "You didn't choose this, I know. But you are where you're meant to be. You weren't ready to die. I know that, too."

Asami pulls away from Korra, glaring down at her. She angrily swipes her tears from her cheeks. "You _know_ that? You already told me you aren't a _patient_ like me, so how exactly can you know _anything_ about my situation? How _dare_ you tell me you know what I'm feeling!"

"I didn't say that I knew what you were feeling. I said I knew that you weren't ready to die." Asami may as well have screamed at a rock for all that it disturbs Korra. "You know you aren't the first person to wake up like this, but did you know that not everybody does?"

"What?" Asami shakes her head. "I...there must be some kind of failure rate with the preservation process, of course. Especially with some of the earliest cases. Gao said I was lucky..."

"I guess." Korra shrugs. "I'm not a doctor or an engineer, I wouldn't know about stuff like that."

"Then what..." Asami pauses. She takes a moment to breathe, and to run her hands through her hair, smoothing it and her emotions back into place. She frowns slowly as she thinks back over their conversation. "You said...what sort of consultant are you?"

"Ah!" Korra smiles like Asami just performed a magic trick. "I'm kind of a...spiritual consultant."

"Spiritual." Asami fails to keep the scepticism out of her voice. "You're an expert on the spirits? And...souls?"

"Yep! Kinda!" Korra either doesn't notice Asami's tone or doesn't care about it. "Which is why I can tell you that you weren't ready to die. The people who are, their spirits move on, regardless of the technology this place uses to keep their bodies intact. _That's_ why some of them don't wake up."

"That...doesn't...make sense."

"Sorry!" Korra frowns, rubbing at the back of her neck. "I keep throwing more things at you, don't I? What I'm trying to say is...I don't think whatever peace you made was an acceptance of death, it was an acceptance of what seemed like the only way out of the terrible moment you found yourself in. If your spirit had been ready to move on, you would have moved on, Asami. This may not be the rebirth you imagined, but it's the rebirth you were meant to have. This time. That...probably still doesn't sound like much to you now, but I hope you'll remember it later. I hope you'll find peace in accepting that."

Korra's eyes are fixed on Asami, and those eyes are a powerful argument in favour of this life and this moment all by themselves. Asami shivers, but it feels like a response to the chill finally being chased out of her polycarbonate and alloy bones.

"I'm not sure I believe you, but...I think I feel better anyway?"

"Good enough!" Korra laughs, and the sound of her laughter _does_ make Asami feel better. "I'm not sure I'd believe me if I were you, so I'll take what I can get!"

Asami smiles. It's hard not to, when Korra's laughing. When Korra laughs, it's easier to see that her beauty is not the product of engineering, and harder to imagine how an engineer could produce someone as beautiful as Korra.

Turning away takes effort, but Asami manages it for as long as it takes to walk to the railing. She leans her back against it, facing Korra again. "What...happens next?"

"That's up to you. Mostly." Korra sighs. "You do have to go through some orientation courses. They're...useful. As far as they go."

Asami raises an eyebrow at Korra.

"Eh, you'll learn a lot about modern technology and the basics of how to function in society, but..."

"But?"

Korra frowns at Republic City in the distance. The serious expression makes her look much older. "The people who designed these courses mostly think in terms of how to make sure you have the basic skills they think everybody needs. They don't fully allow for how current society will affect you. They don't make any allowances for how you might affect _it_ either. There's a district in Republic City, where a small but growing community of Re-Lifers live. You'll be pushed in their direction, because the working assumption is it'll be good for you to be around people who understand what you've been through."

"That...makes sense. I don't...it's going to take time for me to adjust to this new world." Asami decides not to announce her fear that she never will. Or the more salient point: that she isn't sure yet that she wants to. "It might help to be near people who have been through the same things?"

Korra shakes her head. "You can't become part of something by holding yourself separate from it. An insular Re-Lifer community isn't sustainable. I visit them, Asami. I talk to them. I know the time they spend with each other mostly just reinforces their fears about getting back into the world. Which suits people like Gao, because...well, you've already seen how the people here feel about you waking up."

Asami nods reluctantly. "They're more interested in the process and the technology than the person. Than...me. His only interest in me was to make sure I _couldn't_ interfere with the running of Future Industries."

"Yeah? Yeah, that doesn't shock me." Korra sighs. She closes her hands around the metal railing, her knuckles whitening as she squeezes. "They don't care about the people locked away in this place, not once they've woken them up. They don't think much about the impact society has on Re-Lifers other than making sure they have the basic ability to function. And they don't think about what impact the Re-Lifers are going to have on society _at all_. They assume it'll be negligible, that they won't be able to hold significant positions because they're from an older time. They..." She looks at Asami, smiling wryly. "This may shock you, having met Gao, but he and his team are...kinda dumb."

Asami laughs. It's little more than a startled exhale that ends as soon as she recognises what it is, because she didn't know if she still could laugh and it's shocking to discover that she can. Korra smiles, her eyes seeming to glow.

Asami tries out an answering smile. "I can't argue with you there. Although...I don't see how I can significantly affect _that_."

Asami gestures at the sprawling, towering city opposite them.

"It looks more solid than it is, Asami. Societies always do." Korra snorts. "You used a good word earlier. _Displaced_. You were removed from your society and you're being placed into it at a much different point in time. That's going to make a splash. You're going to cause ripples. Maybe only in small ways, but..."

Korra suddenly bends her knees, then pushes with her feet and her hands, vaulting up nimbly onto the railing. She slides her feet out and spreads her arms, steadying herself. Asami discovers that her mouth can still dry out. Korra's perch is only two inches wide. The ground is two hundred feet below them. And Korra's bones and muscles are only human...

Asami takes an uncertain step closer to her, feeling clumsy again. Korra flashes her a smile, even as she sways in the breeze.

"People mistake balance for stability, Asami." Korra raises one foot, tapping it against the unyielding rail. Her body sways again, and Asami darts forward then abruptly stops when her mind processes what she's seeing. Korra isn't being pushed around by the breeze, she's shifting in anticipation of it. Even on one foot, Korra remains perfectly poised and in control. "But they're very different things."

Asami stares up at Korra in awe. She licks her lips and tries to recover what's left of her composure. "Please don't die just to illustrate your point, Korra."

It makes Korra laugh again. She hops off the railing, landing easily on her feet in front of Asami. "I was fine, I promise. But thanks for the concern!"

"Uh huh." Asami eyes the railing doubtfully. "And you haven't been...enhanced?"

"Not in the way you're thinking, no. Back to my point?"

"I may need a moment. I feel dizzy. How are you not dizzy?"

"You used to fly planes, didn't you?" Korra sounds amused.

"I understood the risks, and how to mitigate them!" Asami glares at Korra, who grins in response. "I...you're the only person in this world who's treated _me_ like a person. I'd rather not lose you just yet."

Korra's grin fades, softening into a smile. "You won't. I promise."

"Ah...fine." Asami takes a moment to investigate a bed of fiery orange blossoms near her, putting some distance between her and Korra. "You were making a point?"

"Hm? Oh!" Korra rubs her hands together. "Yeah. Balance and stability. See, people tend to think that society is stable. That it has a basic shape, a foundation that everything else sits on top of. It isn't true. There are always pressures acting on a society, from every angle. There is no solid foundation, no true stability. Maintaining a society is about balancing needs in the face of many different pressures. Trying to keep things stable, trying to keep things _static_, can cause the whole thing to collapse. You see, people forget that change isn't an occasional necessity, it's an _inevitable function of society_. And because they forget, some people push back against change. That's when things can get...ugly.

"People like Gao think about how this place is doing research that will change the future. They don't think about how the people they're waking up might change things _right now_. How the reintroduction of different cultural values might exert pressure, and change the balance of society."

Korra pauses, rubbing the back of her neck. "They don't think about what happens when elements of the existing society try to resist the pressure to change and _push back_. They don't imagine that the _people_ they wake up matter as much as they do. Because Gao and his team are, well--"

"Kinda dumb?"

"Exactly!" Korra beams at Asami. "They dream of immortality, but they don't understand it. And they don't really understand how to think long-term, because they don't care much about how things are right now. That's kind of a good thing, in a way. And really bad in a whole bunch of others."

"And this is something you do think about," Asami murmurs, as she studies Korra. She thinks about the turns their strange conversation has taken. She thinks about Korra moving so gracefully in anticipation of the breeze. "Oh, spirits, I'm a fool! You're the Avatar!"

"You really aren't any kind of fool, Asami." Korra grins. "But yeah, I am."

Asami's hands begin to shake again. "I thought you were kind...but you know I have a seat on Future Industries' board, don't you? You want me to give it up, too. That's why you're here."

"Uh, I didn't know about the board thing. And what you do with it is your choice." Korra tilts her head. "I'm here for lots of reasons. Most of them are to do with my job. But I'm here to meet you, Asami, and I'm definitely here _for_ you. What's happened to you...it's hard to imagine the kind of forces you're experiencing, it's hard to imagine how you've been pushed around." Korra places a warm hand on Asami's shoulder. "I'm here to help you find your balance, any way I can."

"...aren't you worried about the impact I'll have on society?" Asami swallows painfully. "What if I cause problems? What if I do bad things? Don't you have to protect the people of _ this_ time? I don't know how to live here! What if I...break something?"

"What if you do? You're entitled to make mistakes, as much as anyone is. You're entitled to live, Asami. As for any consequences..." Korra's eyes are the dark blue of water in a towering wave, the moment before it crashes down on a boat, dragging it beneath the surface and drowning all its crew. "My job is _balance_, not stability. I'm not here to protect what people think is normal. I'm here to protect what _is_ normal: _now_ evolving into _then_. Painlessly, if possible."

She leaves the alternative unspoken, but in that moment Asami understands that the centuries that she has lost, the centuries she may yet have to endure, do not compare to the perspective the Avatar's millennia of death and rebirth have afforded her. In that moment, Asami knows that she was wrong to think that Korra wasn't a threat: Korra could end her life, in spite of the advantages her new body provides. Korra could sink this whole facility, this whole island beneath the waves if she chose. In that moment, Asami understands that the dreamers in this place, those who have yet to awaken, those who long for immortality, dream in the shadow of the Avatar's grace.

In the shadow of the Avatar's grace, Asami finds the urgent thrum of her pulse again.

Then Korra smiles, her eyes becoming calm water reflecting sunlight. She becomes a woman, young and beautiful and kind. She squeezes Asami's shoulder gently. "For what it's worth, I don't think you're going to do anything bad. I just wanna make sure you understand you _have a life_. I'm pretty sure whatever you do with it from here, you'll set an example for those of us out there who need that kind of guidance. I know I don't know you, but I'm pretty sure that's what makes you who you are, Asami."

Staring into Korra's eyes makes it hard to breathe, hard to think. Asami discovers that her palms can still sweat, that her heart can still race, that her tongue can still feel too thick and clumsy to shape the right words. "You...make it sound so simple..."

"Simple?" Korra shakes her head, but she grins. "Almost no one in that city, in this _world_, is going to want to hear what you have to say, Asami. They're only going to care about what you want when it gets in the way of what _they_ want. They'll fight you every step of the way, just for living. Just for being who you are. Does that sound simple to you?"

"No. No, it...it sounds like home," Asami admits. She laughs, the joy of being able to filling her with warmth. She fills her lungs with the fragrance of the flowers around her, and with the scent of Korra. "To be honest, it sounds like the only way I'd ever want to live."

"Then welcome home, Asami Sato," Korra says, her eyes shining. "I can't wait to see what kind of splash you'll make."

* * *

The way to the rest of Asami's life is through the same elevator that took her to the roof. Korra rides down with her, standing beside her. Asami's chaperone from earlier stands in one corner, shooting wary glances at Korra.

"You said you visited the other Re-Lifers," Asami says, breaking the thickening silence. "Does that mean you'll visit me?"

"Of course! I mean, I'd like to, if you'll let me," Korra says softly, sounding almost shy. "I'd like to get to know the you that the books couldn't tell me about."

"Oh. Oh, I think I'd like that." Asami laughs, drawing a startled glance from her escort. "Hey, can I tell you something?"

"Sure!" Korra tilts her head and raises her eyebrows.

"I always wanted to get to meet the Avatar. I was disappointed back then, when I thought I never would." Asami hesitates, then smiles. "But now I'm grateful that you're the one I'm going to get to know."

Korra looks away, rubbing at her neck. But she's grinning.

And in her veins that are not tissue, Asami's blood that is not blood surges and her new heart soars. She may not understand how the mechanisms of her new body work yet, but Asami understands what she's feeling perfectly well.

When the elevator doors open, Asami offers Korra one last smile before she goes to her lessons. Asami will see Korra again, but first she needs to start the process of making the world make room for Asami Sato to live her life again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading the thing!
> 
> I have one more thing coming for sure, an exciting collab with Writerleft, but that's all I know. Will I manage to write more fics this week?!? Who can say?!??!? 
> 
> Please do let me know what you thought about this one, though! Comments are the Ambrosia and Nectar that fuel my immortality. You...do want me to be eternal, don't you?


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